


d.c. al coda (until the end)

by moonrise31



Series: once, twice, and again until it's over [4]
Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: 3mix is best mix, F/F, I love fluff, minayeon protection squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 03:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13754955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonrise31/pseuds/moonrise31
Summary: In which Nayeon discovers that some songs have happy endings.





	d.c. al coda (until the end)

**Author's Note:**

> From Wikipedia: 
> 
> Da Capo al Coda (often abbreviated as D.C. al Coda): Repeat from the beginning until an indicated place, and then play the tail part.

Contrary to Jeongyeon's insistent opinion, Nayeon doesn't sing out loud all the time because she likes to hear her own voice -- well, okay, maybe it's a small, _minuscule_ part of the reason; but come on, Nayeon must sound pretty good if she's the only person in choir besides Jihyo who gets most of the solos.

In any case, the real, actually _important_ reason that Nayeon sings all the time is because she's got a song stuck in her head. Jeongyeon doesn't believe her, of course, because Nayeon can never remember what the title of said song is. And Jihyo can only shake her head, because every time Nayeon hums a little bit of it, the melody changes. But Nayeon hears what she hears, and sings it for everyone else to hear too -- because if there's any chance to have that tune play a little less loudly in her head, she'll take it.

That's what Nayeon thinks, at least, until she has dinner with Dahyun.

"Thanks again for treating me, unnie.” Dahyun beams at her from across the cafe table.

Nayeon waves a hand. "We've been going to the same university for three weeks now. It's about time I treated you for successfully graduating high school."

"We've both been busy," Dahyun reasons. Then she sets the menu down, the soft slap of laminated cardboard against polished wood lost among the general buzz of the cafe. She rests her elbows on the table and slides them forward. "So, how does it feel like to be in your last year of university, unnie?"

"Let's not talk about that," Nayeon groans. "I'm not ready to be an adult yet."

Dahyun wrinkles her nose. "Yeah, it still seems like we're in high school even after all these years." She tilts her head. "Although there _is_ something different about you, unnie, I think."

"Really?" Nayeon makes a big show of examining the palms of her hands, and then flipping them over to scrutinize her knuckles. " _I_ don't see anything different."

"Maybe you've actually become more mature, despite popular prediction," Dahyun snickers. She ducks, and the wadded-up paper napkin Nayeon throws at her sails over her left shoulder. Then she snaps her fingers as she straightens again. "Oh, I know! You don't hum so much anymore."

"I don't?" Nayeon raises her eyebrows. "Jeongyeon still complains about it pretty much every day." Although now that she thinks about it, she hasn't seen Jeongyeon since their required economics class two days ago, so that's at least forty-eight hours during which she may or may not have been sharing her more melodious thoughts with the world.

Dahyun shrugs. "You haven't done it since we've walked into the restaurant, unnie."

"Oh." Nayeon frowns. "Well, I guess the last time I remember would be..."

"A long time ago?" Dahyun suggests after several seconds of silence.

"I guess," Nayeon says, thoughts buzzing in newfound quiet as she leans back into her seat, still trying to recall the melody that had never once escaped her before.

-

It hits Nayeon in the middle of choir practice.

Sana is busy gushing about the adorable high schoolers she's vocal coaching for on the weekends, of course, and Mina is listening attentively and hiding polite chuckles with her hand, as per usual. Jeongyeon's off chasing poor Momo around the back of the rehearsal room with a small spider she'd swept up from some dusty crevice the custodian forgot to clean.

So Jihyo’s the only one to notice when Nayeon suddenly twitches. She’d have jumped out of her seat, actually, but the last time she’d “rudely interrupted” one of Sana’s stories, the younger girl hadn’t stopped pouting at her for weeks.

“What’s up with you?” Jihyo asks her after practice, pulling her aside before she can get lost in the small crowd making a mass exodus into the hallway.

Nayeon tries for a laugh. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” says Jihyo, “when you looked like you had a mini aneurysm while Sana was talking just now. And I know it wasn't about how cute she finds Chaeyoung and Tzuyu actually wanting to pursue music as a career instead of just as a procrastinating device like the rest of us.”

“Chae-who and Tzu-what?” Nayeon asks.

Jihyo rolls her eyes. “Do you listen, ever, unnie?”

“Not until now,” Nayeon admits. And thinks about how for over a week, no songs have been lurking in her head and blockading her ears. 

Until just ten minutes ago, when she'd heard a familiar tune filling in the spaces between the notes of Mina’s laughter.

-

Looking back, Nayeon still doesn’t know when it exactly happened. Mina is objectively pretty, of course, so Nayeon’s sure their entire friend group -- and probably the entire campus, for that matter -- has suffered at least one moment of Mina-induced, jaw-dropping awe at some point. And from the beginning, Nayeon has also known that Mina is smart, and quiet, and funny in an adorably awkward way, but--

“So,” Jihyo interrupts, “you're telling me that you're into younger women?"

"I hate you so much right now." Nayeon is quick to glare at the other girl's victorious grin, but then her expression immediately falls. "Shit, you're right. I'm her _unnie_ , someone she looks up to. I can't _like_ her -- that's just all kinds of weird."

"Oh, that's not a problem." Jihyo reaches out and pats her on the shoulder. "Trust me, _no_ one looks up to you." She laughs, jerking her shoulder away from Nayeon's vengeful slap even as she asks, "So you've known Mina for a little more than a year, and it's just now that you've decided that you _like_ her?"

"I'm not sure if it counts as a decision," Nayeon admits. She's aware of Jihyo's expectant stare, but she gets lost in songs again -- this time, though, they're not sliding in and out of her head without notice. Nayeon's purposely remembering them one by one, now, and listening to the flash of Mina's silver tooth as she smiles (it’s cute, Nayeon has always thought, unlike her own two front teeth she sometimes feels are too large for her own grin),

or how Mina squeals and claps her hands together when she spots a penguin at the zoo or a bottle of ketchup on the table (Nayeon imagines both at the same time and hears a symphony),

or the way Mina curls into herself in large crowds and reaches for a familiar hand (Nayeon's hand, and sometimes Mina's fingers are warm and sometimes they're cold, but Nayeon wants to hold them all the same),

or the smug smirk that curves Mina’s lips whenever she wins at a game (was that when? That first time Nayeon faced a competitive spirit to match her own, over an air hockey table of all places, and lost quite thoroughly; but it was worth it if only to discover that the only thing Mina is apparently bad at is winking),

or --

"Hey," Jihyo huffs. "If we're done here, I can just leave now and tell Jeongyeon all about this impressive update in your otherwise hopeless love life."

By the time Nayeon realizes what she's said, Jihyo is already out the door and halfway down the hall. Nayeon yells and chases after her, bag swinging precariously from one shoulder as she blasts past an old professor in her mad dash.

(She makes Jihyo pay for dinner that evening. But Jeongyeon ends up tagging along, and the two of them spend the entire time pointing out how Mina is _way_ too good for her. So now, Nayeon's not so sure exactly what's going to come out of all this besides a sudden desperate need for new best friends.)

-

It doesn't take much for Mina to notice that she's the reason Nayeon suddenly has something on her mind. The older girl is someone who likes to throw herself headfirst into everything, whether it's making a new friend or refusing to do homework before the day that it's due.

("Nayeon-unnie is just that kind of person," Sana had explained to Mina during her first day of choir practice, just over a year ago. Then Sana had leaned closer and whispered conspiratorially, "One time, I pretended to be mad at her for not listening while I was telling a story, and she kept giving me candy every day until I stopped." The choir director called for attention, and Sana snickered as she straightened in her seat again. "I managed to guilt trip her for three straight weeks before she realized I'd forgiven her before the first lollipop.")

So if Nayeon suddenly has a problem with Mina, everyone will notice. And Nayeon will want to fix that head-on, too, which Mina will just have to be okay with, she supposes, as Nayeon tugs her wrist gently to stop her from leaving the choir rehearsal room with the rest of their friends.

“Unnie?” Mina tries tentatively when Nayeon has cleared her throat for the fifth time in the past nine seconds. “What’s bothering you?”

“You are,” Nayeon says immediately, and then coughs again right after. “No, sorry, that didn’t come out right. What I meant is, I can’t really get you out of my head.” Her eyes widen and her jaw freezes, now too horrified for any more words to spill from her mouth.

Mina nods slowly through the pregnant pause.

Nayeon groans and throws her hands up. “That didn’t come out right either. Look, it’s just,” she runs her fingers through her hair, and Mina notes that darker roots are finally growing out from underneath the soft autumn red that had drawn gazes across campus for weeks. Nayeon sighs heavily, and Mina returns her attention to the older girl’s frustrated expression. “You're sort of like a song that keeps playing in my head over and over again," Nayeon meets Mina's gaze with all the confusion of a lost puppy, "and I don’t know if I ever want you -- it -- to leave.”

Mina melts on the inside, just a little.

-

(For her part, melodies have been running through Mina's head since she could speak. She just personally made the decision to not talk as much, and listen instead. It’s why she noticed almost right away the first time she heard a familiar song in the soft lilt of someone else’s voice.

It sounded a little bit like love.

Songs are hard pressed to keep the same tempo, though, much less the same tune. So Mina sat back and quietly accepted harmonies diverging into discord, letting her unrequited feelings go as quickly as she’d let them in.

There are many ways to fall in love, in any case, she reasoned. It would be unfair to have them all.

And then a song came barging into the choir room the first practice of her first year, hair dyed a warm shade of brunette and laughter crashing against Mina's eardrums like a cascade of cymbals. So Mina started listening to Nayeon instead of the music notes woven into her thoughts.

She doesn't think she'll ever grow tired of it, this time.)

-

“Mina,” Nayeon starts again, but she barely lets a second pass before she shakes her head and runs her hand through her hair again. “I don’t even know what I’m trying to say anymore.”

“That’s okay, unnie,” Mina tells her softly. “I’ll listen to your songs for as long as you'll listen to mine.”

Several moments pass, and Nayeon still can't find anything to say -- but her brilliant grin is really all that Mina needs to hear.

“ ‘Listen to songs’?” Jeongyeon suddenly snorts from behind them. “Is that what people are calling it these days?”

"Excuse me a moment," Nayeon says. Her grin is still in place, but it's colored a much angrier crimson than the ends of her hair still are. Mina chuckles, and Nayeon whips around, jabbing a threatening finger in the intruder's direction before she lunges and screams, "Yoo Jeongyeon!"

Jihyo, meanwhile, slides up to Mina and nudges her with a sly elbow. "So, Minari. What's it going to be like, dating someone who's a grandma on at least every spiritual level?"

"I heard that, Park Jihyo!" Nayeon bellows from the other side of the room, where Jeongyeon is currently fending her off with a plastic chair. "After I'm done with this one, you are so, _so_ dead!"

Mina holds back another laugh, but only because she spots their director gaping in the doorway.

(After a flurry of deep bows and a staccato of apologies, the four of them evacuate the room and rush down the hallway as politely as possible. Jeongyeon and Jihyo are in the lead, holding hands and making exaggerated kissing noises at each other. 

Nayeon ignores them, because the shape of Mina's fingers fitted between her own is the most heartwarming finale she could ever hope for.)

**Author's Note:**

> I originally meant for this to be less cheesy and more humorous, but I suppose Mina brooding is canon enough that some more introspective stuff just snuck in at the end xD  
> Anyway, if you support Minayeon, you should definitely find me on Twitter! Come say hi @moonrise31 :)


End file.
